Featured Church - Archive

St Mary the Virgin, Farnham CM23 1HR

St Mary's in about 1856

The Church of St Mary the Virgin, Farnham was reroofed in 2011, with the help of a grant of £2500
from the Friends of Essex Churches Trust. St Mary's was rebuilt in 1858-59, and is an excellent,
unspoilt example of a high-quality church building of its day. The building it replaced was
described in 1768 by the Essex historian Philip Morant as being 'built, cathedral-wise, in the form
of a cross, and leaded', but drawings of the church made shortly before the rebuilding show it to
have been of very much the same shape and size as the building which replaced it, with a west tower,
nave, chancel, and south porch, and no transepts. It had been restored in 1827 by George Perry of
Bishop's Stortford, when a gallery was inserted at the west end at a cost of £38. By 1854,
however, the church was described by the diocesan architect, Joseph Clarke, as having 'few points of
attraction or interest, saving the south porch, and one or two isolated features. The tower is late
and uninteresting, containing a weak outline and debased detail. The structure must now be
considered on the verge of decay.'

Tillingham is one of the remotest
villages in Essex, in the wilds of the Dengie peninsula between Burnham-on-Crouch and
Bradwell-on-Sea - it might well be called Tillingham-on-Marsh. In the middle of the village is a
large green (known as The Square) with attractive white-painted weatherboarded houses on three sides
and, in the north-east corner, the parish church of St Nicholas. The present building can be dated
back to the twelfth century: the walls of western half of the chancel, and the north side of the
nave, are of that date, as is the north doorway, which was blocked up in the nineteenth century. But
there has been a church here for very much longer than this, and in fact the history of Tillingham's
church has earned it a place in the Guinness Book of Records. Between 604 and 616, but probably in
608, the parish of Tillingham was granted by King Ethelbert of Kent to Mellitus, Bishop of London,
to help finance his Monastery of St Paul. That monastery eventually became St Paul's Cathedral, and
the Dean and Chapter of St Paul's are still the patrons of the living. This means that Tillingham
has the longest single ownership of anywhere in the country. It also means Christians were
worshipping here a good forty or fifty years before St Cedd landed at nearby Bradwell.

St Nicholas, Little Braxted, is one of the smallest
churches in Essex, and is also one of the most surprising. It was built in the early part of
the 12th century. On the outside it is very simple, almost plain, with its walls of
flint-rubble and puddingstone held together by generous quantities of render. It has kept its
original Norman apsidal east end, although only one Norman window remains, on the north side; the
rest have been replaced at different times, mostly in the 14th century. But as you step inside
the door you enter a completely different world, for the interior is richly furnished and decorated
in a quite unexpected way.

The bench outside
our church is lovely place to rest half way along the Essex Way. Close to the old pilgrimage
route from Canterbury to Walsingham, via Bury St Edmunds, St John’s Church lies down a quiet
lane which follows the line of the River Ter. According to Norman Scarfe, in his Shell Guide
to Essex, Little Leighs Church has preserved a true rustic feel and we hope you enjoy your
visit, virtual or otherwise...

The July edition of Essex County Council’s Essex Matters
magazine asked its readers ‘What would you do with £10,000 to improve your community?’
As the deadline for entries was coming up very quickly, Churchwarden, Irene Allen, sent in an
entry....

One Saturday in the Autumn of 2004 some members of the PCC met in
the church and wondered how they might spend the next couple of hours before lunch and a pint in the
pub. It was possibly the Rector who suggested that it might be a good idea to try and sort out the
vestry. Let’s give him the credit! For about 25 years, the vestry had been used as a
repository for anything that could not be used in the church, but looked as if it might be useful
one day.

The
Parish of Galleywood Common, was formed by Order in Council dated 2Oth Oct. 1874, from portions of
the Parishes of Great Baddow, West Hanningfield, St Johns Moulsham and of the Parish of Orsett. It
covers a scattered area which extends roughly from the Pumping Station (now Fowler Court) on
Galleywood Road, to the turning to Wickford on the Stock Road and from Seabrights Farm on the road
to Baddow, to and beyond Whites Bridge on the Margaretting Road. The boundaries were clearly marked
in different places by ten boundary stones which bore the inscription ‘G.C., St. M.C.C. 1874’,
which being interpreted means Galleywood Common, St Michaels Consolidated Chapelry 1874.

The development of Clacton as the seaside town we know today
started around 1871, thanks to an entrepreneur called Peter Bruff. Mr Bruff was the chief engineer
of the Colchester to Walton railway and had engineering interests along the Essex coast. With
the fashion for taking a sea side holiday coming into vogue, Mr Bruff could see the potential for
Clacton’s sandy coastline. Before 1870, much of what is now central Clacton, around
Station and Rosemary Roads, was Sea Side House Farm held in trust by Mr and Mrs William Watson. With
the death of Mr Watson in 1864, the trust expired and Mr Bruff bought the land in order to realise
his dream.

Great Maplestead, St Giles
stands on a projecting spur of land bounded by two streams which eventually join and run into the
river Colne. Great Maplestead is a picturesque but scattered village 1½ miles SE of Sible
Hedingham and 3 miles N of Halstead. Many of the houses around are 16th & 17th Century but this
ancient church was built c.1100. It probably stands on the site of a pagan temple which was used for
services after the arrival of Christianity.